To this our answer is, that if the Scythians, the
nomadic tribes of Libya, the Seres, who according to Celsus have no
god, if those other most barbarous and impious nations in the world,
and if the Persians even cannot bear the sight of temples, altars, and
images, it does not follow because we cannot suffer them any more than
they, that the grounds on which we object to them are the same as
theirs. We must inquire into the principles on which the
objection to temples and images is founded, in order that we may
approve of those who object on sound principles, and condemn those
whose principles are false. For one and the same thing may be
done for different reasons. For example, the philosophers who
follow Zeno of Citium abstain from committing adultery, the followers
of Epicurus do so too, as well as others again who do so on no
philosophical principles; but observe what different reasons determine
the conduct of these different classes. The first consider the
interests of society, and hold it to be forbidden by nature that a man
who is a reasonable being should corrupt a woman whom the laws have
already given to another, and should thus break up the household of
another man. The Epicureans do not reason in this way; but if
they abstain from adultery, it is because, regarding pleasure as the
chief end of man, they perceive that one who gives himself up to
adultery, encounters for the sake of this one pleasure a multitude of
obstacles to pleasure, such as imprisonment, exile, and death
itself. They often, indeed, run considerable risk at the outset,
while watching for the departure from the house of the master and those
in his interest. So that, supposing it possible for a man to
commit adultery, and escape the knowledge of the husband, of his
servants, and of others whose esteem he would forfeit, then the
Epicurean would yield to the commission of the crime for the sake of
pleasure. The man of no philosophical system, again, who abstains
from adultery when the opportunity comes to him, does so generally from
dread of the law and its penalties, and not for the sake of enjoying a
greater number of other pleasures. You see, then, that an act
which passes for being one and the same—namely, abstinence from
adultery—is not the same, but differs in different men according
to the motives which actuate it: one man refraining for sound
reasons, another for such bad and impious ones as those of the
Epicurean, and the common person of whom we have spoken.